Photo: 123rf
Warning: This story contains details of child sexual exploitation.
An upgraded Digital Child Exploitation Filter will significantly reduce the amount of child sex abuse material available online, the Department of Internal Affairs says.
The number of illegal websites blocked in New Zealand will increase from 700 to nearly 30,000.
The department will add daily-updated lists from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a UK not-for-profit, into its filter of websites hosting child sexual abuse material, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden said.
The IWF filter uses artificial intelligence and human analysis to identify web pages that host such illegal material. Legal adult content will not be blocked.
"This criminal material has no place in New Zealand. It is abhorrent. I am pleased that the department is taking steps to upgrade the filtering system to prevent more children from being harmed," van Velden said.
Holly Brooker, who presented a petition with more than 10,000 signatures to Parliament in April, said New Zealand's filter was set up in 2010, and the technology was "defunct and very outdated".
"We're relieved that the government has agreed to take on the Internet Watch Foundation block list. It's a no-brainer and it's taken a long time to get there," Brooker told Morning Report.
"This is just a really good simple solution to improve the block list, but we do need to improve the filtering technology as well."
The IWF filter was robust and world-renowned, she said.
"Child sex abuse material is a growing concern globally and in New Zealand."
The petition also called on the government to extend the block list to "real rape content and bestiality content of which there are millions of videos and images online which young people can accidentally stumble across and see", Brooker said.
"There's nothing being done about that. It's regarded as a illegal content," she said, but there was a "loophole" because it was still available online.
"We want to see change in that space."
Photo: Department of Internal Affairs
A 2023 DIA report showed 47 investigations into child exploitation led to finding 2,966,773 pieces of material and 209 seized devices.
There were 18,598 reports of child exploitation material to New Zealand agencies in 2021-2023, a 283 percent increase, compared with 2018-2020.
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